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He had not visited the Rancho Seco for more than a week, fearing that his absence might jeopardize the advantage he had gained over the men through the killing of Latimer. With the attention of all the men centered upon him, Rogers walked close to Harlan, speaking loudly: "Them cattle ought to hit the trail, Harlan. It's up to you you're the boss. Do we move 'em an' where?"
Vigor was in the look of him as he stood, a slow grin on his face, beside Barbara Morgan at the entrance of the patio of the Rancho Seco ranchhouse. Barbara was sitting on a bench that ranged the front wall of the building.
For he wanted Barbara to see Haydon's face when the section of chain was returned to him, to gain whatever illumination she could from the incident. He did not care to tell her yet that Haydon had killed her father; but he did desire to create in her mind a doubt of Haydon, so that she would hesitate to confide to him everything that happened at the Rancho Seco.
As he sallied out to a spring in the Valle Seco, two of his men were killed by the French party and the levies of Havana and Cuba, whilst a third died of suffocation whilst scaling the heights. They proceeded across country in order to reconnoitre the enemy's rear.
"Damn your hide," he said, lowly, "you had me goin'. I'm dead set on seein' that girl git a square deal, an' when I saw you makin' a play for them damned outlaws that are in the outfit, I sure figured there'd be hell a-poppin' around the Rancho Seco. You sure had me flabbergasted when you named me foreman, for I couldn't anticipate your trail none. "But I reckon I'm wised up, now.
The victor of Rio Seco was a popular hero. His services were so recent that the President-Dictator quailed before the obvious charge of political ingratitude. Great regenerating transactions were being initiated the fresh loan, a new railway line, a vast colonization scheme. Anything that could unsettle the public opinion in the capital was to be avoided.
And she knew the horsemen could not be Rancho Seco men for they had gone southward from the ranch, and there was no grass range where the horsemen were riding. Also, the men were riding eastward, toward the Rancho Seco. Trembling a little with apprehension, she mounted Billy and sent him down the slope to the floor of the valley.
He spent another long interval lashing himself to the saddle with the rope that he carried at the pommel; and then headed the horse toward the Rancho Seco. He began to ride, urging the horse to what seemed to him a rapid pace. But he had not gone very far when he sagged against the pommel, lifelessly.
"I was headed this way." "To the Rancho Seco?" she questioned, astonished. Again he nodded. But this time there was a slight smile on his lips. Her own straightened, and her eyes glowed with a sudden suspicion. "That's odd," she said; "very odd." "What is?"
It had never occurred to me that my midnight reconnoitring would leave tracks, that Old Man Hooper's suspicious vigilance would even look for tracks. But given that vigilance, the rest followed plainly enough. A skillful trailer would have found his way to where I had mounted; he would have followed my horse to Arroyo Seco where I had met with Jim Starr.
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